I was born on Sept. 11, 1944, in Cumberland, Maryland. The date of my birth, incidentally, was the day on which Western allies first entered German territory in World War II. I was named Julian Peter Riley, and have gone by my middle name since I was about five.

I came from a dysfunctional family, which is perhaps de rigueur for writers. My parents were divorced when I was eight, and I lived in seven different communities and attended seven different schools, mostly in New Jersey, through high school, due to family moves and being shunted between parents, not always amicably. As a child I spent idyllic summers in the countryside.

I attended Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, and the University of Michigan, collecting about three years of course credit but no diploma. When I was 19, I spent a year writing bad poetry.

In 1970 I got a reporting job with the Sarasota Journal in Sarasota, Florida. This fortunate break led to a career in newspaper work. In 1972, seeking greener pastures in Canada, I moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick, where I served as assistant city editor and, later, city editor of The Daily Gleaner. Ten of us were fired in a labour dispute in 1977 and I found myself a copy editor with the Windsor Star in Windsor, Ontario, where I worked for a number of years. I had a brief stint at the Montreal Star, but was unhappy there and returned to my former job in Windsor.

In 1986 I realized I had enough savings to devote two or three years to writing a novel, which I wanted to do above all things. I completed 500 pages by 1988, took them to a writer-in-residence at the Windsor Public Library and found myself agreeing with her that while the novel showed promise, it was poor stuff. I returned to work at the Windsor newspaper.

Five and a half years later, in 1994(the year I turned 50), I left my job again to return to writing. This time I pulled out all the stops, and produced the novel that appears on this website. At that time, its title was Carnival Night, taken from a painting by Henri Rousseau whose title translated into English as A Carnival Evening. I finished it in August, 1999. I changed the title to Universes last year (2009).

I tried and failed to sell it by sending submissions to publishers and agents. As 2000 gave place to 2001 I was at work on 2084, the novelette that also appears on this site. I was jobless, and wretched, for the next couple of years, but found a part-time job with the London Free Press in London, Ontario, in 2002. Four years later I was “downsized,” and in the intervening years I have been adjusting to the odd notion of being retired. I tried again, and failed again, to get the novel published in 2007-8.

Recently (as I write), I bought an electronic keyboard and am tinkering with Bach. I’m not writing fiction, because it’s very hard work, and it would feel futile as long as I’m unable to publish my first novel. My aim still is to get it into print, and that is the primary reason for this website, the rather obscure hope that this might find me a legitimate publisher. I’m also pleased to put it online so you can read it.

Half a lifetime on, I’m content with my decision to live in Canada. I’m a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. Besides plunking on my keyboard, I read a good deal, watch occasional movies and sports events on television, and play computer poker for virtual money. I have never married or cohabited, and have no children. I don’t have a wide circle of friends, and my life is rather dull, though not without stresses. I am 65 now, and unable to accept the fact. I live in an apartment in London, Ontario.